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John Dryden Quotes

1631–1700 England

John Dryden (19 August [O.S. 9 August] 1631 – 12 May [O.S. 1 May] 1700) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.

England
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Also known as: Dryden

Random John Dryden quote

537 quotes

He look’d in years, yet in his years were seen
A youthful vigor, and autumnal green.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

When the hoary head is hid in snow,
The life is in the leaf, and still between
The fits of falling snows appears the streaky green.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The teeming earth, yet guileless of the plough,
And unprovoked, did fruitful stores allow.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

His corn and cattle were his only care,
And his supreme delight a country fair.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Tough thistles choked the fields, and kill’d the corn,
And an unthrifty crop of weeds was born.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

The bearded corn ensued
From earth unask’d; nor was that earth renew’d.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Where the vales with violets once were crown’d,
Now knotty burs and thorns disgrace the ground.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Most have found
A husky harvest from the grudging ground.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Ah that your business had been mine,
To pen the sheep.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Bid the laborious hind,
Whose harden’d hands did long in tillage toil,
Neglect the promised harvest of the soil.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

If your care to wheat alone extend,
Let Maia with her sisters first descend,
Before you trust in earth your future hope,
Or else expect a listless, lazy crop.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

No toil, no hardship can restrain
Ambitious man inured to pain;
The more confined, the more he tries,
And at forbidden quarry flies.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

With joy th’ ambitious youth his mother heard,
And, eager, for the journey soon prepared;
He longs the world beneath him to survey,
To guide the chariot, and to give the day.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

To cure their mad ambition, they were sent
To rule a distant province, each alone:
What could a careful father more have done?

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Casting nets were spread in shallow brooks,
Drags in the deep, and baits were hung on hooks.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Grant her, besides, of noble blood that ran
In ancient veins, ere heraldry began.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Shadwell till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father’s right and realm’s defence,
Ne’er would have peace with wit, nor truce with sense.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

All authors to their own defects are blind;
Hadst thou but, Janus-like, a face behind,
To see the people, what splay mouths they make,
To mark their fingers pointed at thy back.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Autumn succeeds, a sober, tepid age,
Nor froze with fear, nor boiling into rage;
Last, Winter creeps along with tardy pace,
Sour is his front, and furrow’d is his face.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

For he who covets gain in such excess
Does by dumb signs himself as much express
As if in words at length he show’d his mind.

Disputed Poetical Quotations from Chaucer to Tennyson (1880)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: John Dryden (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.